LOS ANGELES - Opening statements are scheduled Monday in the trial of a substance abuse counselor who allegedly drove drunk, ran into a pedestrian in Torrance and drove two miles with the man embedded in her car’s windshield before other motorists got her to stop.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury was impaneled Thursday to hear the case against Sherri Lynn Wilkins, 52, of Torrance, who is charged in the death of Phillip Moreno, who was struck on Torrance Boulevard near Madrid Avenue in Torrance at 11:25 p.m. Nov. 24, 2012. The 31-year-old Torrance man later died at an area hospital.

Wilkins is charged with one felony count each of murder, DUI causing injury, driving with a .08 percent or higher blood-alcohol content causing injury and leaving the scene of an accident involving

At a hearing last May in which Wilkins was ordered to stand trial, prosecution witness Stephanie Hicks identified Wilkins as the woman who had been driving the vehicle that was “swerving left to right and going into the median” at Del Amo and Crenshaw boulevards.

“There was a man on the hood stuck in the windshield,” Hicks said.

The prosecution witness testified that she called 911 and directed her friend to follow the car, which eventually stopped at Crenshaw and 182nd Street in Torrance, where Wilkins was told to get out of the car.

“I asked her what was going on. She said she was taking him to the hospital,” Hicks said, adding that the woman said the man had “jumped in front of her car.”

Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney John Harlan, the prosecution witness said there were two hospitals in the area, but they were not in the direction Wilkins was driving.

Hicks testified she saw the pedestrian’s legs stuck in the windshield and that she tried to comfort him as he moaned in pain.

“He was in bad condition,” she said of the man who was not wearing pants, underwear or shoes.

Hicks testified that Wilkins seemed shocked and said repeatedly that she was “in trouble.”

Torrance police Officer Scott Norris testified at that hearing that he concluded Wilkins was “under the influence of alcohol,” citing the results of a preliminary alcohol screening test.

The area where Wilkins stopped was two miles from the site of the initial crash on Torrance Boulevard near Madrid Avenue, with a pair of pants and a tennis shoe being recovered in the middle of Torrance Boulevard, the officer said.

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At a hearing last week, defense attorney Nan Whitfield previewed an argument that her client wasn’t responsible for Moreno’s death, asking to admit medical evidence of alleged delay in treatment.

His death “was either as the result of delay or as the result of error ... during exploratory surgery,” Wilkins’ attorney said, noting that the cause of death had been a severed mesenteric artery.